I love this pattern! The only real modification I did was to put a half stitch of pearl kreinik over the white in the waves in the amazing border. It makes the waves actually look wet!

I love the framing of this and in the various houses its lived in, its always had a place of honor where it would be highlighted as obviously as possible. Visitors always comment on how beautiful the design is… It was really fun to stitch and I love the dolphins and mermaids in the borders and it was easy to break up into small areas for frequent little accomplishments.

Thanks for reading, and thank you for all of the wonderful comments you leave!

The rules around these lovely awards are:
1) Put the logo on your blog
2) Add a link to the person who awarded you
3) Nominate at least 7 other blogs
4) Add links to those blogs on yours
5) Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs

I decided to take a half day off work on Friday… It was a rainy afternoon so IMO a perfect afternoon for taking a nap and doing some stitching until DBF got home.

DBF and I went to his son’s football game on Friday night. Not really my thing, but I wanted to get out and spend some time with DBF and I usually like to go to one or two of his games. His son is a Junior at Penn High school, but is starting on the varsity team so it was all very exciting for DBF and his son. It was a nice night – pleasant for being outside. Penn lost the game, but his son performed well.

Saturday we got up early and drove to Chicago. We met up with DBF’s brother and his wife and went to see the Jeff Koons exhibition at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art. It was a good (intresting) exhibit and we walked through the rest of the museum as well. I’m really only good for 90 minutes at most in museums, so the smaller size of this museum was perfect and in general I preferred it to the Art Institute exhibits.

We next went to Stubbs coffee shop to suprise his sister who had an art exhibit opening that day. She was doing a joint art show with her DBF, so it was fun to hang out with them. DBF ended up buying one of her paintings, we headed to Trader Joes to stock up on our favorite stuff, then headed home and relaxed.

Today was chore day – shopping, cleaning, etc, and I got a lot more stitching done. Here is my latest progress on LHNs’ Thread Gathering…

The majority of my progress was the border, but I’ll probably at least finish the lettering tonight while watching the Olympic Closing Ceremonies.

I’ve been nominated for three separte blog awards, but as yet, have not figured out how to get the logos into a post. So… if you’ve nominated me, thank you and please know I’m not ignoring you. I’m still working on it!

Lastly, I got a snapshot this afternoon of one of our cats, Tater, hanging out in the kitty fort. He is such a sweet and affectionate cat…

I stitched this as a wedding sampler for some friends and honestly had a very hard time giving it away. I love the whitework, the soft, muted peach and green colors, and that beautiful wreath filled with ribbon roses and sparkly beads. This is easily one of my all time favorite designs and fully intend to stitch it for myself someday…. not necessarily as a wedding sampler, but maybe a birth sampler, or just a plain band sampler. I already have ordered an additional accessory pack.

I also really like the way the framing turned out in this one. You can’t see it in the picture, but the white mat is actually embossed with really wonderful leaf pattern. I understand this particular mat has been discontinued and I’m hoping I’ll be able to find it somewhere on the web when I’m ready to frame the version I’ll stitch for myself.

I started working on Little House Needleworks Thread Gathering last weekend after having repeated dreams that I was working on it. This is on the recommended 32 count raw/natural linen:

This is not normally my type of thing, but I’m really enjoying working it.. pretty straightforward, no confetti and I prefer working with cotton over the silks I’m using on Alpine Seasons. I think the Crescent Colors floss feels a little thin, but it seems to be covering well and I like the colors.

I’m finally starting to feel normal after what feels like an endless recovery. There’s 4 weeks until my next vacation, and of course there are some hikes that I want to do, so I’ve got time to work up to that from where I am now. I just need to do some walking every day. 😀 I did a little bike ride around the neighborhood yesterday and it felt OK. I might do some more short rides this week.

Thanks for all of the comments and e-mails – I appreciate and enjoy reading all of them!

Here is the next installment of “Finished Project of the Week.” In these posts, I highlight a project finished prior to when I started blogging.

This is Indigo Rose Desiderata. I’ve always loved this poem and saw this online somewhere and HAD TO HAVE IT. One it arrived I opened the chartpack and was immediately intimidated by the pages and pages of speciality stitches when I’d only done cross stitch before. I kind of put it away and wondered if I’d ever be able to stitch it.

A few years later, I started doing Victoria SamplerBeyond Cross Stitch Kits to learn new stitches and hardanger. It wasn’t long before I saw the Desiderata in my stash, and bolstered with confidence from the BCS kits, ordered a big piece of fabric and got to work. This actually took me several years to complete, and my big piece of fabric turned out not to be big enough, so the bottom hardanger band had to be modified to fit.

I had this framed a a local shop. This picture is what it looked like when I got it home. As you can see, the fabric is a little wonky up at the top, distorting the box around the “G” at the beginning of the poem. Since it had been laced, I took the backing off and straightened it out and now it looks great and is hanging in a hallway.

The poem is a little hard to read here, but if you’re not familiar with it, you can go here (then scroll down) to read it.

I had a fun weekend, especially after this long recovery I’m still dealing with. We watched the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics Friday night and loved it… especially the fireworks! Wow… I would’ve loved to have been there.

Saturday we went to Chicago to spend the day with DBF’s sister and her boyfriend. We picked her up at Union Station then went to the Intelligentsia coffee house in Lincoln Park, where she has her paintings on display, and met her boyfriend there. We had never met him before, but really liked him. He was really sweet with DBF’s sister – affectionate and stuff, but besides that he was just a really cool guy. We had lunch at Nancy’s Pizza (“Home of the Original Stuffed Pizza”), splurged on some ice cream, looked around in some shops, then the four of us went to Navy Pier to see Cirque Shanghai.

The show was at the Skyline Stage on the pier… it has a roof but is open on the sides and it was just a perfect summer evening (We went to the 6:00 show). Before DBF and I headed home, we were hungry so went to the Weiner’s Circle– a hot dog joint that DBF worked at for years while he was going to college. I was thrilled to see that they now serve veggie burgers! It could’ve been the best veggie burger I’ve ever had… oh and the cheddar fries, which we shared, were yummy too! We were there around 9:00, so the place was still pretty tame. I hear it gets pretty wild there when the bars close.

I did get some stitching in on Sunday. I started Little House Needleworks Thread Gathering… there’s only about 20 stitches in it at the moment – I’ll post a progress pic later in the week.

Did anyone watch the Greece vs China beach volleyball on Sunday? What was up with those announcers? They were obsessed with how many times the Chinese women hugged each other and talked about how the number of hugs (aka the “Hug Count”) accounted for their win in the first match… They showed slow motion footage of the women, slick with sweat and wearing bikini style bathing suits, hugging, and went on and on about it. WTF? Does anyone who saw this think I’m over-reacting by thinking their banter was unprofessional and just plain in poor taste??